And the Leading Team Is...

Blake RasmussenSaturday, February 22, 2014

t the end of the weekend, one player will thrust a trophy in the air, get handed a giant check, and forever have their name aligned with Budde, Finkel, and more as Pro Tour winners.

But if you take your focus off the center of the picture, chances are you'll see them surrounded by friends, well-wishers and teammates who are just as deliriously happy for one reason: their team performed the best.

While the headline after Sunday will be all about that one name, much of the tournament's energy has been focused on and filtered through the numerous teams that have come to stake their claims as the best in the world. Where ChannelFireball and CFB: The Pantheon came in as clear favorites, there were plenty of other teams who put in the work, the sweat, and the hours to give their members the best chance to succeed.

While no team truly distanced itself from the field, a number of teams did clearly perform better than others when looking at teams with at least six members.

The best performing team, by the slimmest of margins, was Team Flipsidegaming.com, headlined by Jared Boettcher's impressive ninth place performance with Ad Nauseam. The six members of their team average exactly nine wins per player, placing it just above three other teams with more than 8 wins per player: CFB: The Pantheon, Austria/German (Nico Bohny, Pierre Dagan and company), and ChannelFireball.

Not coincidentally, those were also three of the largest teams.

The actual largest team, Team Revolution, with 17 players all testing together, actually put up one of the tournament's worst team records, averaging about 6.4 wins per player. Only the Doge and Midwest Connection teams did worse out of groups with 6 or more players.

It's also interesting to note that players who did not specify a testing team finished with an average of 5.51 wins on the weekend, placing them noticeably behind all but Doge and Midwest Connection. The average for the entire tournament was 6.29 wins.

Team name

No. of members

Average total wins

Flipsidegaming.com

6

9

CFB Pantheon

15

8.666666667

ChannelFireball

15

8.666666667

Austria/Germany

12

8.083333333

Face 2 Face Games

13

7.692307692

TCG Player

11

7.363636364

Almost Finnished

7

7.285714286

MTG Mint Card

9

7.111111111

Elaborate Ruse

12

7.083333333

13 Angry Men

10

7

Revolution

17

6.411764706

Tournament average

393

6.287531807

Japan

7

6.142857143

No team affiliation

184

5.510869565

Midwest Connection

9

5.222222222

Doge

9

5

But let's drill down even deeper by format.

If you just count the Booster Draft rounds, the spread was a bit less between the best performing teams and the worst.

Team name

No. of members

Average draft wins

ChannelFireball

15

3.6

Austria/Germany

12

3.416666667

Flipsidegaming.com

6

3.333333333

13 Angry Men

10

3.3

Face 2 Face Games

13

3.153846154

CFB Pantheon

15

3.133333333

MTG Mint Card

9

2.888888889

Japan

7

2.857142857

Elaborate Ruse

12

2.666666667

Revolution

17

2.588235294

Almost Finnished

7

2.571428571

TCG Player

11

2.545454545

Tournament average

393

2.491094148

No team affiliation

184

2.163043478

Midwest Connection

9

2.111111111

Doge

9

2.11111111

Here we see ChannelFireball putting up a strong showing with 3.6 wins per team member in the draft portion, the closest any team came to average a 2-1 record. Along with Austria/German and Flipsidegaming.com, they tracked pretty close to their overall performance.

The Pantheon, on the other hand, was noticeably further back in the pack when it came to drafting, at 3.13 wins per team member, jumped by 13 Angry Men and Face 2 Face Games, implying Pantheon did more damage in Modern than in the 40-card deck rounds. TCGPlayer also fell back noticeably.

As expected, that means those teams did better in Modern.

Team name

No. of members

Average Modern wins

Flipsidegaming.com

6

5.666666667

CFB Pantheon

15

5.533333333

Channel Fireball

15

5.066666667

TCG Player

11

4.818181818

Almost Finnished

7

4.714285714

Austria/Germany

12

4.666666667

Face 2 Face Games

13

4.538461538

Elaborate Ruse

12

4.416666667

MTG Mint Card

9

4.222222222

Revolution

17

3.823529412

Tournament average

393

3.796437659

13 Angry Men

10

3.7

No team affiliation

184

3.347826087

Japan

7

3.285714286

Midwest Connection

9

3.111111111

Doge

9

2.888888889

Unsurprisingly, The Pantheon stepped up their game in Modern relative to their draft performance while 13 Angry Men clearly didn't have the format down as much as they did limited.

Still, yet again you can see that teams, by and large, finished higher than those without significantly sized teams.

So the crown for best team performance by a team with at least six players clearly goes to the crew of Jared Boettcher, Max Brown, Bryan Gottlieb, Peter Ingram, Dan Jordan and Robert Victory. The best performance by a team with at least a dozen team members, my totally arbitrary cut for "big" teams, is probably ChannelFireball, narrowly edging The Pantheon thanks to a more even record across both formats.